


It's Not What I'm In Love For

by noos



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, au in terms of who survives the long night, even tho i wrote it before it aired, works as a fix it for 8x04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noos/pseuds/noos
Summary: I think about it sometimes. About what would’ve happened if he hadn’t sought me out in Flea Bottom. Sometimes about him and my father. About their friendship. About what would’ve happened if my father had claimed me.





	It's Not What I'm In Love For

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before i saw 8x04. It's kind of prophetic, really, because it works so much as a fix it fic. Basically the opposite of what happened. And set way in the future. 
> 
> Title from Bloodsport by Raleigh Ritchie. Shout out to my boy Grey Worm for fueling my playlist.

It went down like this.

Gendry fought the long night side by side with Arya and Jon and saw the Dragon Queen laid to rest with the rest of their dead that night. He went to King’s Landing with Jon and his army to help him claim his rightful throne, and watched as Sansa was declared Queen in the North soon after.

When the time came for him to choose between staying in King’s Landing or starting a new life elsewhere, there was no question about it. He would be wherever Arya was. 

He confided as much in Jon, but never told Arya herself.

He knew he was taking a risk, telling Jon that he was in love with his sister. But when it came down to it, Jon was his friend and there were few people he trusted more. So he chose to put his faith in their friendship and was very honest about why he was turning down the opportunity to be the lord of some castle or another. He assured Jon he wasn’t asking for anything, that he wouldn’t even be telling Arya. He just wanted to be where she was, as long as she wanted him there.

After overcoming his initial shock, Jon was actually quite supportive; he even tried to convince Gendry to tell his little sister. But Gendry believed that he knew her better. If he told her, he would without a doubt drive her away. 

Jon, bless him, let him be after that and gave him the perfect excuse to remain in the North. A few days after their talk, he publicly asked Gendry to stay in Winterfell and continue to take charge of the forge, with Sansa's blessing. Sansa was only too eager to agree, while Arya only smirked at him and called him ‘my lord’.

He wasn’t a lord, though. Jon still offered to legitimize him but Gendry turned him down. He didn’t need to be a highborn to work in a forge, so he saw no reason to claim a name that never meant anything to him. 

They left for the North the next day, and he never looked back.

\---

He had been in Winterfell for some time now. Long enough to call it home.

Long as he’d been here, though, Gendry had never visited the crypts. Not alone, anyway, and certainly not when he wasn’t being chased by White Walkers or scrambling to help people hide from the army of the dead. 

But on this day, that’s exactly where he finds himself, his feet seemingly dragging him there on their own accord. 

He’s not sure what he’s doing there but he doesn’t think too much on it before he starts walking slowly in the dark tunnels, observing the statues one by one. 

He finds Rickon first, his heart aching for the youngest Stark. He remembers Jon telling him about the Battle of the Bastards. About how he had to watch his little brother die right in front of his eyes. 

He continues walking until here reaches Robb. Jon and Arya seem to both agree that Robb would’ve liked Gendry. Sansa reckons he would’ve been jealous.  _Robb didn’t really like other people taking up Jon’s time_ , she always tells them.  _And Gendry certainly does that_. Not for the first time, Gendry wishes he knew which of the Starks would’ve been right. 

Next, he stop in front of Lyanna Stark. A northern beauty, everyone says. The woman his father started a war for. She never returned his father’s affections, and Gendry often feels like a right shit because he’s grateful for that. Maybe he wouldn’t be alive if she’d loved Robert enough. So in some twisted way, he wouldn’t be here without her. He wouldn’t know Arya. 

He can’t look at her for too long; even in stone, she looks too much like  _her._

He wanders off to where Catelyn and Ned stand towering, wondering not for the first time what it would have been like to know them. As he watches Arya's parents, he can’t help but be thankful that none of the Starks he knows are here. 

Arya is the first one that comes to mind.

Even as a boy, when he was only one and five, he knew he couldn’t imagine a world without Arya Stark. When he was sold to his uncle, he thought he’d never see her again. But during that time, he never let himself believe that she wasn’t alive. Whenever he thought about her back then, and he thought about her quite a lot considering he only knew her for a short time, he told himself that he simply couldn’t see her. Just like the stars during the day, she was there, but he couldn’t see her. But as long as his world kept turning, then Arya Stark was out there somewhere.  

His thoughts soon drift to Jon and how much it surprised them both that they grew so close so quickly. He knows he was a little foolish when he first met Jon in that cave, declaring them friends just because their fathers were. But Jon humored him, putting his trust in him and confiding in him when Gendry didn’t expect him too. It became mutual, after some time, that respect and trust and affection, and Jon soon became the closest thing Gendry had to a brother. Blood was thicker than water, but some things were thicker than blood, he had come to learn.

That he grew so fond of Sansa was even more shocking, Gendry thinks. She was intimidating, to say the least, and it took them a while to find their footing.

He remembers the first time they really came to an understanding, they were watching Arya spar. The idiot she was fighting thought he could outwit her by having his friend sneak up on her. Arya wouldn’t have it, of course, kicking him in his balls before turning to his friend and putting her blade to his neck, refusing to let him go. Sensing Arya’s temper, Gendry and Sansa had both yelled at her to spare the idiot before they turned to look at each other in surprise.  _Next time you interrupt me, it’ll be your balls and your neck,_ she had threatened them, one perfect eyebrow raised as she walked past them and into the castle. Gendry and Sansa dissolved into laughter at the same time. 

Bran was a tougher nut to crack. The first time they really talked, Bran was breaking bread with Sansa and Theon. Gendry had come over to show them Theon’s finished armor when Sansa invited him to join them. It was a little awkward at first, especially when Bran turned to Gendry and thanked him out of nowhere. Gendry stared at the boy with a slightly dazed expression until Bran finally continued.  _For being kind to Arya before you knew who she was_. Gendry had gulped audibly and only nodded, the tips of his ears turning pink as he stammered something about how he would’ve done the same for anyone. Sansa had looked at him with an amused smirk as Theon tried not to spit his drink out at Gendry's horrified expression.

He can count Theon as a Stark too, he supposes. And he’s just as thankful that the man is not carved in stone. Their friendship took him by surprise too, but he supposes, if nothing else, they are bonded by their loyalty to the Starks, especially their women. 

His thoughts continue to drift from one memory to the other and he stands staring at Ned’s imposing sculpture for a long time. He’s thinking about how the stone imitation doesn’t look anything like the man who visited him in Flea Bottom when Arya finds him. 

“He would’ve like you.”

He turns to look at her as she makes her way to stand next to him, the hint of a smile on her lips. Even in the dark, shadows cast across her face and hair wild from hours of training, she still looks like the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

He won’t tell her that, though. Their whole thing works because it’s easy. Because there’s no real commitment to it, no grand gestures.

Well, aside from that time he nearly got his head hacked off by a wight to save her from him. Or that time she took an arrow to her shoulder when she jumped in front of him at the Last War in King’s Landing. 

_Gods, they were a mess._

The point is, he learned that theirs was mostly a show-don’t-tell relationship, so it was better to leave a lot of his thoughts unsaid.

“He did, I think,” Gendry replies once she’s next to him, shaking the silly thoughts out of his mind. She squeezes his hand briefly and he smiles down at her. Her left eyebrow shoots up, a silent question on her face. “When he came to see me in my shop back in Flea Bottom that one time,” he explains. “Told Master Mott to send me to fight for him if I ever wanted to wield a sword.”

“High praise indeed,” Arya agrees, nodding lightly before she turns her attention to her father. Her expression softens. “He was a kind man. He chose his fighters carefully. His friends even more so.”

Gendry peers over at Ned’s statue again. She seems to be more open to talking today. More open to remembering. Maybe he can tell her what he’s thinking. He takes his chance. 

“I think about it sometimes,” he admits. She turns to look at him, brow lightly furrowed in interest. “About what would’ve happened if he hadn’t sought me out in Flea Bottom.” He breathes deeply, trying not to think about a world where he never met Arya Stark. “Sometimes about him and my father. About their friendship. About what would’ve happened if my father had claimed me.” 

She doesn’t say anything, her mask slipping before she turns to look at him, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. 

“You would’ve been a right ass,” she says, and Gendry can’t stop the surprised laugh that escapes him. 

Of course that’s what she thinks. She always did have a softer spot for bastards and common folk than she did for highborns.

“We would’ve met much earlier,” Gendry points out. “Under happier circumstances,” he adds, suddenly overwhelmed with memories of their time on the run. Of Arya confiding in him, of the first time he realized that she had to watch her father die in front of her eyes.

The only upside of spending most of your life without knowing your father is that you never have to see him die. 

“And you would’ve hated me.” Her words snap him out of his thoughts and he turns to look at her, his eyebrows raised in question. “I was insufferable as a child.” 

She shrugs, but Gendry can see there’s more to that statement than what she’s saying. He just doesn’t know what, and he certainly knows better than to ask outright.  

“You speak as if we didn’t meet when we were children,” he muses, smiling at her. “As if you’re not insufferable still,” he teases, watching as she rolls her eyes.

“‘S'not the same,” she mutter. “When we met, everyone around us was either a crook or a raper or a traitor. I _had_ to stay out of trouble.” 

“You call lying to an army of Lannister knights and consorting with assassins staying out of trouble?”

He was worried about protecting her more often than not, back then. He still is, but he knows better now. Most of the time, she’s the one protecting him. 

Arya rolls her eyes again. 

“Yes, I do,” she insists. “If you’d met me here when I was younger, you would’ve seen how I was. Always milling around. Arya Underfoot, they used to call me. Arya Horseface. Terror Child.” Gendry frowns. “If you’d met me here, you would’ve had highborns and lords and ladies to compare me to. You would’ve seen that even Jon and Bran and Robb and Rickon were better behaved.” She pauses for a moment, seemingly contemplating her next words. Gendry waits for her to continue. “You would’ve had pretty girls in billowy skirts and northern braids to compare me to.”

There it was. What she was trying not to say. Gendry wants to laugh because he can think of at least ten maids in braids and dresses that he ran into on his way to the crypts just this morning. He wants none of them. 

He wants her. Strong and wild and fierce and beautiful. In breeches and a jerkin, her hair falling on her face, her cheeks red from sparring with whoever was unfortunate enough to try this morning. 

“I still think I would’ve liked you,” Gendry shrugs, trying his best to convey what he really feels without saying too much. 

He turns to stare back at her father’s statue, his cheeks flushing lightly. He can see her beaming up at him from the corner of his eyes. She turns to stare ahead of her as well.

They’re quiet for a few moments before she opens her mouth and unravels Gendry’s entire world with six small words. 

“I think we should get married.”

For a second, he thinks he might’ve heard her wrong. 

There is not a world in which Arya Stark is asking to marry him. But when he turns to look at her, the mild panic evident on his face, he can’t see any trace of doubt on hers. She’s looking at him solemnly, with that same determination she had on her face when she stormed into his forge and asked him to make her the weapon she would ultimately use to fight an army of wights with.

“I’m a bastard,” he mutters eventually, for lack of anything better to say. 

She can’t be serious about this. There are so many reasons why she shouldn’t be.

She rolls her eyes again, and even in a cloud of confusion and uncertainty, Gendry’s features slip into a small smile. He’s been the perpetrator of that eye roll so many times over the years. Three times today alone. Since they’ve been reunited, though, he’s been somewhat relieved to see that Jon is also on the receiving end of that expression quite a lot, and even Sansa on occasion. 

“A Baratheon bastard,” she argues, snapping him back to their conversation. “The bastard of a king. One who can get legitimized any time he chooses to.”

He wonders if Jon told her that he had offered to give him a name with a title.

“Do you want me to get legitimized?” He asks, his heart suddenly in his throat. 

He doesn’t know why it bothers him to think she does. After all, this is what he’s always told himself; that even though they’ve been sharing a bed for well over a year now, they can’t really be together because he’s a bastard. 

“I don’t,” she replies quickly, shaking her head lightly and turning to face him completely. “You know I don’t, Gendry,” she reassures. He wants to reach out and touch her. He keeps his hands firmly to his side. “I don’t care what your last name is. Baratheon, Waters, or even Lannister...” she trails off, and he knows she’s thinking about Varys and that brief period he had them believe Gendry might’ve actually been Cersei's firstborn. Bran had thankfully used his... whatever-it-was-that-he-did to squash those claims. Cersei’s firstborn didn’t actually die when they told her, that part was true, but he died of an illness a few months after. “It doesn’t matter to me.” Arya reaches for his hand, and Gendry immediately feels the warmth that emanates from her cool fingers spread up his arms and into his bones. “I don’t care if you’re a highborn or a lowborn or a bastard. Or if you’re the king’s hand or a smith or the master of arms. I just want you. I want the stupid bull I traveled with.”

It’s everything he wants to hear, but there are still some things gnawing at him. It all feels too good to be true.

“I thought you never wanted to be a lady?”

She sighs, letting go of his fingers. He’s making this difficult and it’s starting to get on her nerves, he can see that. But he truly can’t process that she actually wants this. That she wants him the way he’s always wanted her. 

“I don’t,” she confirms. “And I know you won’t try to make me a lady. You can’t anyway,” she adds hurriedly, and he chuckles under his breath. He definitely knows better than to try and make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. She turns her back to him, walking towards her mother’s statue and wiping some cobwebs off her cheek. “When I was a child, for the longest time, I fought against being a girl because I thought it made me weak. I thought if I wore dresses and ate lemon cakes and thought about love, it would make me less of a fighter.” She moves to where her aunt Lyanna's crypt is, watching Jon’s mum with a mix of awe and adoration. “But it doesn’t. I’m not a member of the Kingsguard and I’m not a knight. I’m not a killer or a lord, and I’m certainly not a lady either. But I am a woman and I want to be brave and strong and a fighter. And I can be all that and still have a family.” She walks back to where Gendry stands waiting for her, eyes following her every move. Gods, she’s beautiful. “I can still love someone.” 

If his heart wasn’t hammering before, it’s trying to make its way out of his chest now. 

“Your sister wouldn’t allow it. Surely she wouldn’t allow you to marry a baseborn smith.” 

Gods, he could be stubborn. Even _he’s_ getting annoyed with himself. 

He can physically feel Arya thinking the same thing. She eyes him up, a half-smirk on her face.

“It wouldn’t be you if you didn’t act stupid at every turn,” she mumbles, but Gendry can hear the affection in her tone anyway. He smiles. “You don’t really mean that,” she tells him then. “You know Sansa better than that. She doesn’t tell me what to do,  _she_  knows better than that. She doesn’t care about those things, not anymore, and anyway she thinks too highly of you.”

“But Jon—“

“Would be happy for us. So would Davos. So would anyone we give two shits about, really.”

She’s right. He knows she’s right. Still, he can’t help the doubt creeping into him. Can this really be happening? Can he really be getting everything he’s wanted since he was fifteen and on the run? 

“Arya, I...” he trails off, because he doesn’t know exactly what he wants to say. 

Something changes in her demeanor, her eyes suddenly flickering with some kind of emotion. Her smile is replaced by a frown as she takes a step back.

“You don’t want this?” She asks, her voice small. Suddenly, she looks so much like the young girl who found out he knew she was a girl when no one was supposed to. He realizes exactly how this looks and what she must be thinking. “You don’t want m—“

“No, I do!” He interrupts quickly, taking a step forward and reaching out to grip her shoulders and keep her from doing something stupid like leaving. “‘Course I do,” he reassures quickly, willing her to see.

“Then why are you fighting this?”

He sighs, so tired all of us a sudden. He doesn’t get much sleep anymore, not since he and Tormund stood on a growing pile of corpses and dead flesh, killing everyone in sight. 

“Because I’m not used to getting what I want,” he admits in a low voice, dropping his hands from her shoulders and looking down at his feet. “I was born in a tavern in Flea Bottom, Arya.” When he looks at her, she’s staring back patiently. “I was abandoned by my father and then sold and traded more times than I can count. I can’t really count, for that matter, nor can I read or write,” he adds. She doesn’t care, he knows that, but he still wants to remind her who she’s choosing to spend the rest of her life with. “I’ve been working since I was five and strong enough to wield a hammer.” He looks down at his hands. He’s broken all of his fingers at some point or another, smashing them with that hammer. He was too young to know what he was doing. His left thumb is still crooked, and he’s got burn marks all over his hands that won’t really ever go away. “Everyone that’s ever meant anything to me has either died or walked out on me.”

That’s the crux of it, really. No matter how much he loves her, or maybe because he loves her so damn much, he’s absolutely terrified of the day she’ll leave him. 

She steps closer again, eyes warm as she looks at him. 

“Jon hasn’t. Davos hasn’t.” She pauses, taking another step until she’s right in front of him. Gendry looks away. “I haven’t.” She reaches out to touch his face, fingers lightly brushing his chin as she lifts his eyes until they meets hers. “I won’t,” she promises. He holds her gaze for a moment, swallowing thickly as he wills her words to be true. She drops her fingers. “Gendry, if you don’t want to marry me, that’s fine.” Gendry wants to laugh because she really has no idea. “I understand. You’re stupid, and I’ll be mad as hell and can’t promise not to punch you in the shoulder.” He does laugh, because it’s such an Arya thing to do. “But if you want a quiet life in some cottage with a dainty little maid who’ll cook you dinner and raise your babes, I can’t stop you.”

Now it’s his time to roll his eyes. If he wanted that he would’ve stayed in King’s Landing. 

“I don’t,” he says anyway because he feels like they both need to hear it. They haven’t ever talked about what they wanted from each other, so he’s not about to leave room for any doubts. “I don’t care about any of that. You know I don’t.”

“Well, then, if you don’t want to marry me because you think you’re not good enough, or because you think I’m going to walk out on you, then you’re wrong.” She reaches for his fingers again and laces them with her own. “I know how you feel about me. I’ve always known, on some level. Even when we were children and you thought I was too young and too good for you. I knew it back then, how much you cared, how much you wanted to keep me safe. I just didn’t know what it meant.” Her grip tightens on his hands. “I wouldn’t be here unless I felt exactly the same.”

Here’s the thing; there are few times in Gendry’s life when he felt he might be brave enough to tell Arya how he felt about her. 

Once, right after the Battle of Winterfell, when he and Jon found her under the Weirwood Tree with Bran and he couldn’t stop himself from running to her and examining her face, touching every part of her he could reach to make sure she was real and alive. She’d let her fingers trace his face the same way before she’d pulled him down for a hug. 

Once, when they were seated around a fire on their way to fight the Last War. She had lightly bumped his shoulder with hers, listening to Tormund tell her some story about a giant he fought beyond the wall and absently handing Gendry some of her squirrel.

Once, when they were lying in bed in her chambers, the morning sun filtering through the window and illuminating her face in the most beautiful way. 

Once, when he surprised her with a new staff to replace the one she lost in battle and she jumped on him so suddenly he nearly lost his balance and fell backwards. 

A few times after that too. 

But every time he opened his mouth to speak, she would shut him up with a kiss. Or with some sly comment like “don’t open your mouth or you’ll ruin it”. Or even simply by walking away.  

“Can you at least let me say it, then?”

Arya sighs, dropping his hands and walking over to a small stone bench to sit down. He follows her.

“Everyone who has ever said it to me has died,” she tells him in a small voice. “Father. Mother. Robb. Rickon.”

“What about Jon and Sansa?” Gendry asks her softly. “What about Bran?”

“Jon made me swords and took me hunting and let me borrow his breeches, and I knew,” she shrugs. “We never needed to say it. And Sansa and I were always too busy fighting as children. And then when we reunited, we didn’t need words to understand. We just knew. As for Bran, well…” She looks at him pointedly. She doesn’t really need to elaborate there. 

“But they’re just words, Arya.” He never had anyone he wanted to say those words to.  _I love you. I care for you. Thank you._ But now he had a bunch of people. Mostly her. “They’re only as strong or weak as we make them.”

He knows what she’s gonna ask before she does. He would’ve asked exactly the same thing. 

“Fear cuts deeper than swords,” she agrees. “But if you think they’re just words, why do you need to say them so badly?”

He sighs, letting his eyes linger on her face.

“Because I’ve never had this. I’ve never cared about anyone this way and I’ve never had anyone care about me this way.” He pauses for a moment, wondering if he should speak his next words. “I’m terrified that if I don’t tell you how I feel, that if I don’t put it into words, even though I don’t really know how to put it into words,” he rambles, his face scrunching up as he tries to make sense of what he’s saying, “what you mean to me or how much, then you're just gonna...” he trails off, unable to continue, the thought of her leaving too much to bear.

“I’m not,” she tells him quickly, her eyes earnest as they meet his. “I won’t,” she promises. “I love you.” She lets it slip so casually, and for a moment, Gendry wants to laugh. He’s waited so long to hear those words from her, and she just said that like there was never any question. Maybe there never was. “ _You_ , Gendry. Not your last name, and not even your first time, although I’ve grown quite fond of it.” Gendry laughs. He feels like his heart is about to burst out of his chest with relief. “Not your work as a smith or your birthright or lack thereof. It’s you. Stubborn, stupid, a downright pain in my ass—“

“M’lady, please, don’t feel the need to hold back,” he teases, and Arya lets out a small chuckle that echoes in the crypts.

“ _You_ , Gendry,” she repeats, reaching for him and running her fingers lightly through his hair and down the side of his face. He leans into her touch. “Smart. Loyal. Protective. Kind. Strong.” She pauses, brushing her thumb across his jaw. “Not bad on the eyes either,” she shrugs. 

His breath catches in his throat, his laugh coming out as more of a sigh.

“I thought I was meant to be telling you how I feel,” he whispers shakily. 

“Go ahead,” she tells him, dropping her hand from his face but linking their fingers together. “Though I’m not sure there’s really a point. You can’t top that.”

He laughs again, this time a little less shaky and a little more amused. He really can’t. And he doesn’t need to, he realizes. 

“You already know,” he tells her instead. 

“I do.” 

She leans forward and presses a light kiss to his shoulder before pulling back. 

“Fierce,” he tells her anyway. “Strong. The strongest person I know.” She looks down for a second, a smile on her face. “Brave and stupid, so we have that in common.” She laughs. “Beautiful,” he tells her, palming her cheek until she’s looking at him. He wants her to know. To understand. There can never be anyone else. 

“Gendry...” She links her fingers with his on her cheek and looks away again. She doesn’t like to be told such things, he knows, but just this once. He needs her to know. 

“Still want to marry me?” He asks, brushing a strand of hair off her face, her fingers moving in tandem with his, until she’s looking at him again. 

“Yes,” she tells him firmly. Gendry is sure he might be about to burst at any moment now. “But I wasn’t kidding before,” she adds. “A home, kids, a big family. I don’t know that I want that. And even if that changes someday, I don’t know that I can.”

Her scars. She thinks they might have damaged something inside her.

He doesn’t care. He’s got scars too. 

“I don’t care about any of it,” he voices his thoughts, trying to convey the truth behind his words. “I already have a family,” he admits for the first time since that cave, lifetimes ago. She smiles wistfully. Maybe she’s remembering the same thing. “I have you and Jon and Davos, and even Sansa and Bran and Theon. I just want to marry you, Arry.” 

“So you want to marry a little boy, do you?” She raises her eyebrows up at him.

“Oh piss off,” he grumbles, dropping their hands and shoving her lightly. She laughs in return. “That’s the last time I’ll be calling you anything other than Lady Stark.”

“Don’t forget that I killed the Night King, Gendry Waters.” She raises her eyebrows at him. ”You’re in my bed more often than not. It would be a shame if you woke up without your fingers, one of these days.” 

“Davos’ll say it’s a family trait,” he shrugs, and she laughs again. His heart skips a beat. “Arya.” He likes her name on his tongue.

“That’s better,” she whispers, smiling at him still. She turns away from him to look over to her father’s sculpture again. Gendry stands up, holding his hand out to her, leading her over to his crypt. “He would’ve liked this,” she tells him, her gaze flickering to their entwined hands for a second. “It’s what he and your father always wanted.” 

Gendry smiles. 

“Would she have liked this?” He asks, nodding his head towards Lady Stark’s statue. 

“She would’ve  _hated_  this,” Arya laughs breathlessly. “ _Me_ , asking for  _your_  hand? Me, in your  _bed_  every night?” She shakes her head, looking at her monthly fondly.

“You don’t give her enough credit.” The voice startles them both, and they look back to find Sansa walking towards them. Gendry doesn’t know how she snuck up on him, it’s usually Arya who does that. He realizes he’s still holding Arya’s hand and some part of him wonders if he should maybe let go of her. As if sending his hesitation, Arya tightens her grip on him, her hand grounding in his. He smiles. Sansa smiles too, as she takes in their linked fingers, coming to a stop next to Arya and turning to look at their mother. “She would’ve been relieved you have someone to love you and take care of you.” Arya smiles next to him. “That’s all she ever wanted for you. For all of us.” Sansa pauses for a moment, before she turns to look at them both, her brow furrowed comically. “Wait, did you say ask for your hand?”

Arya and Gendry laugh at the same time.

“I take it you’ve been here a long time,” Arya mutters.

Sansa raises her eyebrows. She’s not getting an answer out of her, she knows that, so she turns to look at Gendry expectantly. 

“Aye.” Gendry nods, grin wide on his face. Sansa’s eyes widen in surprise for a moment, before her features turn soft and she smiles. “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to turn away all my suitors, Lady Sansa.”

Arya rolls her eyes. 

“I know you think you’re joking,” Sansa starts, “but you do realize I have received more than my fair share of ravens offering suitors?” Gendry snorts. “For both of you,” she clarifies, and Gendry looks up in surprise. It’s stupid, really, but all he feels in that moment is warmth. People seem to think that they need Sansa’s blessing to marry him. That he’s her family. “Well, Arya mostly, but more than a few for Gendry.” Sansa insists. “Lady Karstark seems to be more than taken with our smith.”

“Well, tell Lady Karstark that if she ever approaches our smith I’ll make sure she doesn’t live long enough to move on,” Arya speaks before either Gendry or Sansa can say anything, her face a perfect mask of calm. 

“Arya!” Sansa admonishes, and for a second Gendry thinks he sees the sister Arya used to talk about. Horrified at all the improper things her little sister Arya can do.

They dissolve into laughter a minute later, Gendry joining them.

“I think what she means is you can safely tell them I’m not interested,” he says when they’ve calmed down. 

“Neither of us are,” Arya clarifies, smiling up at him. He can’t stop himself from leaning in to press a kiss to her lips, blushing furiously when he notices Sansa eyeing them with a fond smile. He turns his attention back to the stone in front of him. “I just wish she knew that not all love was the same,” Arya whispers, her attention back on her mother. “That it came in different ways. That sometimes all you need is someone who accepts you for who you are.” Arya looks at her sister. “Even if he’s Theon,” she teases, elbowing her sister.

“You’re talking about my husband,” Sansa warns, but there’s no real bite to it, and soon she’s laughing again.

“It’ll never get any less strange,” Arya says, a fond smile on her face. “You calling Theon your husband.”

“I know,” Sansa agrees. “You get used to it, though,” she adds, looking at her and Gendry, the corner of her lips quirking up in a smile. “You’ll see.” She looks back at her mother. “And I think she knew that already.”

“I hope she did,” Arya says. “I hope she’s proud of us for choosing to be happy rather than proper.” 

The silence stretches for a few moments. It’s only when Sansa sniffles that Gendry’s snapped out of his thoughts and back into crypts. Sansa looks at them with a watery smile, almost apologetic. Arya stands on the tip of her toes to wipe Sansa’s tears with her sleeve. 

Her other hand still holds Gendry’s firmly.  

“So, do you think your father would’ve liked me more than he liked Theon?”

Gendry doesn’t even realize he asked that question out loud until he notices both girls raising their eyebrows at him.

He feels his cheeks flush, wanting to kick himself, but then Arya and Sansa burst into laughter at the same time. 

“Absolutely,” Sansa says at the exact same time Arya tells him “Definitely not.” 

 


End file.
